1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a weather strip mounted along an opening portion of a door opening of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a conventional door opening weather strip is provided along an opening portion of a door opening portion of a vehicle, such as an automobile. The weather strip has a trim part, which is held by a peripheral flange of the door opening, and a hollow seal part provided in such a way as to project from one of side walls of the trim part. The trim part has a substantially U-shaped section. The mounting state of the weather strip can be maintained by fitting this trim part on the flange.
Further, when the door is closed, the seal part is pressured contact with and deformed. Thus, the seal part seals between the door and a vehicle body. One such weather strip portion is mounted on a part corresponding to an upper or side part of the door. Another such weather strip portion is mounted over the entire peripheral flange of the door opening portion. Among such weather strip portions, a substantially rectilinear portion (that is, an extruded section) corresponding to the upper and side part of the door is formed by performing what is called an extrusion method. Further, a corner portion (that is, a molded section), at which the substantially rectilinear portions intersect with each other, is formed by performing a molding method.
Meanwhile, in recent years, conventional weather strips using, for example, thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) as a material of the molded section, especially, the seal part thereof have come to be known (see, for instance, JP-A-2001-30685). Such employment of TPO as the material of the seal part brings about many merits that the need for performing vulcarization process is eliminated, differently from the case of using rubber as the material of the seal part, and that a molding time can be reduced.
However, in the case that the seal part of the molded section is made of TPO as described above, even when soft TPO is used, the extensibility of the seal part cannot be expected to be as high as that in the case of using rubber. Therefore, when stress acting in the extension direction of the seal part of the molded section is applied thereto after the weather strip is molded, for example, during conveyed, the stress is transmitted to the connection surface between the molded section and the extruded section. Thus, there is a fear that peeling occurs therebetween. This drawback is liable to occur, especially, in the case that the extruded section is made of a material, such as EPDM (ethylene-propylene-diene copolymer), which differs from the material of the molded section.